Every thought made her cry harder. Days went by and still she cried. Honoria made sure that Dougless was dressed each day and she tried to see that she ate, but Dougless couldn’t eat. She didn’t care about eating or sleeping. Her mind was on Nicholas.
At first the other people in the Stafford household were sympathetic to Dougless’s tears. They knew why she cried. They had seen the way she and Nicholas looked at each other, the way they touched. Some of them sighed and remembered their first loves. They felt sorry for Dougless when Nicholas went off to be married, and they saw the way Dougless cried in heart-broken grief. But their sympathy wore thin when Dougless’s tears went on day after day after day. They became so annoyed that they began to ask themselves what use the woman was. Lady Margaret had given Dougless everything, but now Dougless was giving nothing in return. Where were the new games, the new songs the woman should be providing?
On the fourth day, Lady Margaret called Dougless to her.
Dougless, weak from fasting and endless tears, stood before Lady Margaret, her head down, her cheeks wet, her face swollen and red.
Lady Margaret was silent for a moment as she looked at Dougless’s bent head and heard the soft weeping. “Cease!” Lady Margaret commanded. “I am most tired of your tears.”
“I can’t,” Dougless said, hiccuping. “I can’t seem to stop.”
Lady Margaret grimaced. “Have you no spine? My son was a fool to believe himself to love you.”
“I agree. I’m not worthy of him.”
Sitting down, Lady Margaret contemplated Dougless’s bent head. She knew her younger son well enough to know that this woman’s tears would wrench his too-soft heart. Before he left, Nicholas was saying he could not do his duty and marry the Culpin woman. How would their marriage fare if he returned and found this strange red-haired wench crying for love of him? Lady Margaret had always been able to reason with Kit, but Nicholas, like his father, had a stubborn streak. She did not think Nicholas would do it, but what if he returned, saw the red-eyed face of this Dougless, and attempted to set his marriage aside?
Lady Margaret continued to look at the bent head before her. The woman must go from this house. Yet why did she hesitate in sending her away? For that matter, why had she allowed this woman into the Stafford house? At first Nicholas had been enraged that his mother had so trusted the oddly dressed, oddly spoken young woman enough to take an unknown tablet from her. Yet Lady Margaret had taken one look at the woman’s face and she had trusted her. Trusted her with her life.
Nicholas had been so angry after that. Lady Margaret smiled in memory. Nicholas had locked the girl in a filthy cell at the top of the house, and she’d stayed up there, eaten by fleas, while Lady Margaret had argued with her son over the girl’s fate. Nicholas had wanted to toss her into the road, and, in truth, Lady Margaret had known he was right. But something prevented her, something inside her, made her refuse to thrown the girl out.
It was Nicholas who had gone to get the girl. He had been “trying to reason” with his mother (“reason” is what he called his stubborn insistence that he was right) when, abruptly, he got up, left the room, and went to fetch the girl.
Lady Margaret smiled more broadly when she thought of the girl’s absurd story of being a princess from far off Lanconia. Lady Margaret hadn’t believed her for a moment, but the foolish story had given her a reason for keeping the girl near her, against Nicholas’s strenuous protests.
Those first days had been divine. The girl was lively and entertaining beyond all reasoning. Even her speech was amusing. And her actions never failed to delight, puzzle, and fascinate. The girl was stupid about so many things, such as dressing and even eating, yet she was very clever about some things. She knew more about medicine than any physician. She told curious stories about the moon and the stars and the earth being round. She had devised a short, wide chair that was stuffed with down and had fabric nailed over it. She called it an “easy chair” and had given it to Lady Margaret. She didn’t know it, but she had half the household rising early to hide in the gardens to watch her bathing in the fountain, using a marvelous foam on her hair and skin. In private Lady Margaret had inspected the wonders in her bag, had even used the little brush and something called toothpaste.
Oh, the girl was entertaining, all right. At one point, Lady Margaret had hoped she would never leave.
But then Nicholas had fallen in love with her. Lady Margaret had not at first cared. Young men often fell in love. At sixteen Kit had been in love with one of her ladies-in-waiting. Lady Margaret saw that the woman took Kit to bed and taught him a thing or two; then she’d sent Kit to the kitchens, where she knew a voluptuous servant girl was working. Within a week Kit had been “in love” with the serving wench.
Lady Margaret had had no such troubles with Nicholas. Nicholas had never needed an introduction to women. Over the years he had given his body freely, but never his heart.
She should have known that when Nicholas did give his heart, he would give it so completely that a hundred voluptuous serving girls would not be able to take it back. At first Lady Margaret had been glad when Nicholas had shown such extraordinary interest in this Dougless Montgomery. Lady Margaret had thought that when Nicholas returned with his bride, since Dougless loved him, the red-haired woman would not be tempted to leave the Stafford household. Lady Margaret would miss the girl’s humor and knowledge if she were gone.
But as the days progressed, Lady Margaret refused to see just how attached Nicholas was becoming to her. When at last Lady Margaret had really looked at her household, what she saw did not please her. Her youngest son loved the woman to the point of obsession. Her eldest son spoke of giving the girl great riches, and Kit’s future wife talked of little else except what Dougless said or did.
As did the r
est of the household. “Dougless says children should not be swaddled.” “Dougless says the wound must be washed.” “Dougless says my husband had no right to beat me.” “Dougless says a woman should have control of her own money.” Dougless says, Dougless says, Lady Margaret thought. Who ran the Stafford household? Did the Staffords or this girl who lied about her relatives?
And now she stood before Lady Margaret weeping, weeping as she had done for days. Lady Margaret clenched her teeth when she thought of how the tears of this one woman were affecting everyone.
But worse, she knew that these tears would affect Nicholas. Nicholas who said he loved her, Nicholas who talked of breaking a betrothal because of this woman who had nothing, who was nothing. Yet this woman, to whom Lady Margaret had given so much, now threatened everything in her family. Were Nicholas to disavow his contract with the Culpin family . . . No, she did not like to think what could happen.
The red-haired woman must go.
Lady Margaret’s mouth set into a firm, hard line. “The runner has come from Lanconia. You are no princess. You are related to no one in the royal house. Who are you?”
“J-just a woman. No one special,” Dougless said, sniffing.
“We have given you all that our house has to offer, yet you have lied to us.”
“Yes, I have.” Dougless kept her head down, agreeing with everything. There was nothing anyone could say to her to make her feel worse. The marriage was to take place this morning. Today Nicholas would marry his beautiful Lettice.
Lady Margaret took a breath. “On the morrow you will leave us. You will take what clothes you came in, no more, and you will be sent forever from the Stafford house.”
It took a moment for Dougless to understand. She looked at Lady Margaret, blinking at her through tear-filled eyes. “Leave? But Nicholas wishes me to stay, to be here when he returns.”